GIS Data for the Tohoku Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

We all know what happened late last week in northeastern Japan. There have been a tremendous amount of causalities and people have lost everything. A number of agencies are predicting that this event could be the most costly in history, and we all know that it will take many years for this region and country to recover.

It is also during times like these that geospatial professionals are called upon provide any number of spatial services. Now the hard part. Where is the data? How do we get to it and make sense of it? A number of data sources are becoming available, many at a high resolution or very current. These critical datasets are being generated using a number of different technologies, from satellite imagery to social networking, providing relevant information on-the-fly. It is really amazing to see this information become available so quickly after such a colossal event.

The following websites provide just a glimpse into the amount of data that is becoming available. By no means is this list complete or authoritative.